And this other factor is not covered by the term "practical
reason." In fact no ethical principle shows better the subtle blending
of the emotional and social factors with the rational. For the student
of the history of justice is aware that only an extraordinarily
ingenious exegesis could regard justice as having ever been governed by
a mathematical logic. The logic of justice has been the logic of a
we-group gradually expanding its area. Or it has been the logic of a
Magna Charta--a document of special privileges wrested from a superior
by a strong group, and gradually widening its benefits with the
admission of others into the favored class. Or it has been the logic of
class, in which those of the same level are treated alike but those of
different levels of birth or wealth are treated proportionately. Yet it
would seem far-fetched to maintain that the countrymen of Euclid and
Aristotle were deficient in the ability to perform so simple a reasoning
process as the judgment one equals one, or that men who developed the
Roman Law, or built the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, were similarly
lacking in elementary analysis. Inequality rather than equality has been
the rule in the world's justice. It has not only been the practice but
the approved principle. It still is in regard to great areas of life. In
the United States there is no general disapproval of the great
inequalities in opportunity for children, to say nothing of inequalities
in distribution of wealth. In England higher education is for the
classes rather than for the masses. In Prussia the inequality in voting
strength of different groups and the practical immunity of the military
class from the constraints of civil law seem to an American unfair. The
western states of the Union think it unfair to restrict the suffrage to
males and give women no voice in the determination of matters of such
vital interest to them as the law of divorce, the guardianship of
children, the regulation of women's labor, the sale of alcoholic
liquors, the protection of milk and food supply. Are all these
differences of practice and conviction due to the fact that some people
use reason while others do not? Of course in every case excellent
reasons can be given for the inequality. The gentile should not be
treated as a Jew because he is not a Jew. The slave should not be
treated as a free citizen because he is not a free citizen. The churl
should not have the same wergeld as the thane b